Evaluation of the of antibacterial efficacy of polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) and tri-sodium citrate (TSC) silver nanoparticles

We present silver nanoparticles as the new age broad spectrum antibiotic. Siver nanoparticles exhibit unique physical and chemical properties that make them suitable for understanding their biological potential as antimicrobials. In this study, we explored the antibacterial activity of silver nanoparticles (TSC-AgNPs) and silver nanoparticles doped with polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVPAgNPs) against Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacteria, Escherichia coli (DH5a) and Staphylococcus aureus, (ATCC 13709). Nucleation and growth kinetics during the synthesis process of AgNPs were precisely controlled using citrate (TSC) and further doped with polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP). This resulted in the formation of two different sized nanoparticles 34 and 54 nm with PDI of 0.426 and 0.643. The physical characterization was done by nanoparticle tracking analysis and scanning electron microscopy, the results of which are in unison with the digital light scattering data. We found the bactericidal effect for both TSCAgNPs and PVP-AgNPs to be dose-dependent as determined by the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) and minimum bactericidal concentration (MBC) against E. coli and S. aureus. Interestingly, we also observed that AgNPs showed enhanced antimicrobial activity with a MIC of 26.75 and 13.48 lg/ml for E. coli and S. aureus, respectively, while MBC for AgNPs are 53.23 and 26.75 lg/ml for E. coli and S. aureus, respectively. Moreover, AgNPs showed increased DNA degradation as observed confirming its higher efficacy as antibacterial agent than the PVP doped AgNPs.